Who Are You?
by TotalCSIfan
Summary: When Jackie fails to come home from work Nick makes it his personal mission to find her. Please R&R!
1. Chapter 1

Who Are You?

It was four thirty in the afternoon and Nick was at home watching his two children. He was feeding his infant son Houston a bottle while his little girl Jasmine played on the floor with her favorite doll. His wife Jackie should be arriving home any minute now.

By 5:15 Jackie still had not come home, he was beginning to get worried so he dialed her cell phone number-no answer.

"_She probably had a meeting." _He thought to himself, but if she did have a meeting it was totally out of character for her not to call and let him know. He had spoken to her during her lunch break and she sounded fine, and she hadn't mentioned a meeting, but perhaps a parent had dropped by after school to talk to her and she had just lost track of time. She often stayed late at the school she taught at to prepare for the following day but again she always called to let him know, and she always liked to check in to see how Jasmine and Houston were doing.

By six o'clock when she still hadn't come home he knew that something was wrong. He called Catherine to ask if she would watch the kids, he didn't tell her why he needed a babysitter and she didn't ask, she just said she'd be happy to babysit and that he could bring the kids over when he was ready. He loaded the kids in the car and drove to Catherine's, he dropped the kids off and then drove to the school where she taught. There were still a few cars in the parking lot but he didn't see her van. The school door was still unlocked so he went in, the secretary had left for the day and the school was mostly dark except for a few of the classroom lights that were still occupied by teachers that were preparing things for the following day. He wandered down to Jackie's classroom, the light was off. The door was open but all the classroom doors remained opened at night after the teachers left so the janitors could clean them. Nick flipped on the light switch. He saw nothing out of place, her lesson plan book was on the back table where she normally kept it, the student's desks were in nice rows, and the floor was fairly clean considering the room had 23 first grade students in it just a few hours ago.

"Nick?" a voice asked.

He spun around.

"Oh hi Susan, what are you doing here so late?" Nick asked, he hoped that she'd say that she had an after school staff meeting, because if she did that meant Jackie did as well, which would explain why she didn't come home.

Susan Anderson was a fellow first grade teacher, and also a good friend of Jackie's.

"I'm going to be gone tomorrow so I was preparing for a sub, I was just heading home when I noticed Jackie's classroom light was on. Is something wrong?" she asked sounding concerned.

"Do you happen to know what time Jackie got out of here today?" he asked.

"Yeah, around 4:20, she popped her head into my room to tell me goodbye, why do you ask?" She said.

"She never came home. Did she happen to say if she was going anywhere after she left here?"

Her friend's eyes clouded with concern, she knew it was totally out of character for her to not call home to check on her kids.

"Yeah actually she did, one of her student's birthday's are tomorrow and so she said she was going to go by cupcakes for the class tomorrow."

That didn't surprise Nick at all, Jackie was always buying treats and fun things for her students.

"Did she happen to say which store she was going to?"

"She didn't say, I'm sorry."

"That's alright, thank you." He said.

"What can I do to help you find her, I'll help anyway I can."

"Thanks, I appreciate that, right now I hope she just got stuck in traffic, or she met one of her friends for coffee and he cell phone is just dead."

"Well if you need anything let me know, I'd be happy to baby sit Jasmine and Houston while you look for her."

"Oh, thanks, but my coworker has them, but if you hear from her could you tell her I'm looking for her and that I'm worried about her."

"Sure Nick, when you find her let me know will you?"

"Sure, thanks for your help." Nick said.

Susan nodded with a smile and then left the room.

Nick poked around in Jackie's classroom a while longer but he didn't find anything that could help find her. As he got back into his truck he had a bad feeling, he didn't think it was a simple case of a dead cell phone, she'd find some other way to contact him if she could. He thought of where she would probably go to buy the cupcakes and decided that she would probably stop at the store closest to their house. He took the route she was most likely to take, as he drove he scanned the road for anything that might lead him to her. He was only a couple miles from the store when something caught his eye. There were skid marks on the side of the road, the skid marks stopped at the edge of an embankment. Nick quickly pulled over to that side of the road and jumped out of his truck. He looked over the edge and saw Jackie's minivan upside down.

"Oh my God." He said and without even thinking about it he slid down the embankment.

"Jackie." He screamed.

As he got closer to the mini van he heard country music and he noticed the drivers side window was down which made sense because it was very nice outside. When he had finally reached the vehicle he peered cautiously into the open window, afraid of what he might find. He was relieved to discover she was breathing and her eyes were wide open.

"Jackie, sweetie, are you ok?" he asked as he gently reached in and touched her hand.

"Yeah, I'm ok, I'm just stuck in here because I can't get my seat belt undone."

Nick breathed a sigh of relief. "You're sure you're not hurt?" he asked.

"I'm ok." She repeated.

"Ok, thank God, don't worry I'm going to get you out of there." He promised.

"Ok but before you do, can I ask you something?" she asked.

"Sure, what is it?"

"Who are you?" she asked.

Nick's eyes grew wide and his heart sank.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

After they arrived at the hospital the doctors did tests to make sure Jackie had no internal injuries. She didn't, she was actually the picture of health except that she couldn't remember who Nick was. After they had made sure Jackie had no life threatening injuries they did a scan of her brain to try and figure out what was going on. When they were finished with the scan they took her to a recovery room.

"Hi, I'm Stephanie, I'm going to be your nurse today." A friendly looking woman said as she walked into Jackie's room.

"Hi Stephanie I'm Jackie and this is my friend Nick." Jackie said with a smile.

"_Friend"_ Nick thought worriedly but he didn't say anything.

Nick had an idea, he thought if anyone could jog Jackie's memory it would be a certain someone.

"Jackie, I will be right back." He said.

"Ok." She said. When Nick left the room Jackie looked at Stephanie and said

"He is such a nice guy, I wonder why he's not married." She said.

"I don't know, it's a mystery." Stephanie said with a smile, she knew that Nick really was married and she knew who he was married too, but she played along.

Nick went into the waiting room where all of Jackie's family had gathered, as well as her friends and Nick's friends from the lab.

"How is she?" they all asked in unison.

"Same." Nick replied glumly.

He picked up Jasmine and carried her into Jackie's room.

Jasmine ran to Jackie's bed. Nick said a silent prayer that Jackie would know Jasmine.

"Hi cutie." Jackie said as she picked up the little girl.

Nick let out a sigh of relief and a huge smile spread across his face. He looked over at Stephanie who was also smiling.

"What a sweet little girl, is she yours?" Jackie asked as she looked at Nick.

Nick's smile evaporated.

**Note: I know this chapter is short but I thought it was a good stopping point. The next (and probably final chapter will be longer! As always thanks for reading and I love reviews!**


	3. Chapter 3

"Yeah she's mine." He replied.

"She looks a lot like you." Jackie said.

Nick nodded.

"Mama home?" Jasmine asked as she looked up at Jackie with a smile.

Jackie laughed "What a sweetheart, she just called me mama." She said.

Nick forced himself to smile.

He then went and took Jasmine off of Jackie's bed, he figured he better get Jasmine out of there before Jackie said something that Jasmine shouldn't hear.

"Bye-bye Mama." Jasmine said with a wave.

"Bye cutie." Jackie said.

When Nick returned to Jackie's room just a couple minutes later Jackie smiled "You have an adorable little girl, but she's really confused if she thinks I'm her mother."

Again Nick forced a smile

"_Someone's confused but it isn't her." _He thought silently to himself but he kept his mouth shut.

A couple hours later Jackie had drifted off to sleep and Nick sat in the chair next to her hospital bed lost in his own thoughts as he stared out the window.

"Mr. Stokes."

Nick turned around and noticed a doctor standing there.

"Hi, I'm Dr. Adams, I have the results of your wife's brain scan, if you would come with me to the conference room I'll go over those with you."

Nick looked at Jackie, she was still sleeping so he nodded his head at the doctor and followed him out of the room.

Before going into the conference room Nick stopped by the waiting room to grab Jackie's mom and dad, he figured they had as much right to sit in on this has he did.

When they reached the conference room they all sat down.

"Mrs. Stokes's results are very good, I see nothing that indicates that she will have any permanent damage."

Her parents were very relieved, Nick was as well but he was still concerned.

"Well then what's going on? She introduced me as her friend today and she didn't know our daughter was hers, she acted as if she had never seen Jasmine before. Her life revolves around our two children, so for her to not know our daughter scared me more than anything."

"I realize how worrisome that must be to you but I see no reason that your wife shouldn't regain her memory." The doctor said with a comforting smile.

"Do you know how long it will be before she gets her memory back?" Nick asked.

"Unfortunately no, it depends on the patient, it could be today, tomorrow, a week, two weeks, a month, there's really no way to tell, I'm sorry. For now what I would recommend is to just be patient with her."

"Alright, thank you." Nick said as he stood up.

He shook the doctor's hand and then left the room.

He returned to Jackie's room, she was still sleeping so he sat down in the chair beside her bed and flipped open the book he had been reading.

Two days after the accident Jackie still didn't remember anything.

Three days after the accident she was taking a nap and Nick was sitting by her bed as he had been since her accident.

"Nick?" she whispered as he eyes fluttered open.

"Hi." He said with a smile.

She rubbed her temples "Where are the kids?" She asked.

Nick's heart skipped a beat,

"What kids?" He answered.

He knew very well who she was talking about but he was testing her memory.

Jackie looked at him like he was crazy.

"Our kids, Jazz and Houston. Who else would I mean?" she said.

Nick's face broke out into a huge grin, he got up from his chair and grabbed her hand.

"Welcome back." He whispered, "oh and to answer your question they are with your parents, more than likely getting spoiled rotten." He said with a smile.

She smiled back, then her face became troubled,

"Is the squirrel dead?" she asked.

"What?" he asked with a frown.

"The squirrel, is it dead?" she asked again.

Nick then became scared, he thought that perhaps she had suffered some brain damage that the doctors' hadn't realized.

"What squirrel sweetie?"

"The squirrel that ran out in front of me, that is why I swerved. A squirrel ran out in front of me and I didn't want to hit it so I swerved to miss it and then the next thing I knowI'm plummeting down that embankment."

Happy tears welled in Nick's eyes, Jackie didn't have brain damage, she was just being the kind person she always was.

"When I found you I didn't see any evidence of a squished squirrel." he answered honestly.

She smiled "Good." She said.

Three days later Jackie went home, her memory had nearly all returned the only thing she didn't remember is what happened between the time she went down the embankment and when Nick found her. She also didn't remember a thing about the time that she was in the hospital, it was as if those few days never happened.

A week after coming home from the hospital Jackie went back to work. Nick went with her on her first day back to support her.

Jackie's principal let her get settled into her classroom and then came in to talk to her. The principal had decided to call in a substitute teacher just in case Jackie got tired, or on the off chance she didn't remember her students.

When her students walked into the classroom it was obvious Jackie had no problem remembering any of them.

They all crowded around her.

"Yay you're back, we missed you." They cheered.

"I missed you all too." She said with a warm smile on her face.

Each student gave her a hug, and as she hugged them back she addressed them by name.

"Hi Mrs. Stokes." One little boy said as he squeezed her tight.

"Hi Dayton." She said as she hugged him back. "Oh Dayton, I know I'm really late with them but I brought something for you and the rest of the class." She added as she motioned to the back table.

"Cupcakes, thanks Mrs. Stokes." He said happily.

"You're welcome, happy birthday." She said.

Jackie looked at Nick who was sitting in the back of the room. He was grinning from ear to ear.

He gave her a wave as he walked out of the room. As he walked down the hall towards the front door to leave he couldn't have been any happier, any doubt that he might have had about Jackie not being completely back to normal had vanished.

The End!


End file.
